The Riddle of the Unfinished Dinner

Maya found the receipt tucked into his wallet like a secret—a hotel room in Alexandria, two nights, room service for two. She'd gone looking for cash to buy more spinach for the salad she was making, something green and healthy to offset the grayness of their marriage.

The dog, Buster, nuzzled her ankle. He always knew when her heart rate spiked.

"It's nothing, buddy," she whispered, though the paper burned in her hand.

From the other room, David's voice drifted in—low, conspiratorial. A phone call cut short when she walked in. He'd been doing that for months. The corporate spywork, he called it. Sensitive mergers. Need-to-know basis.

She'd believed him. She'd been the riddle's answer, blind as Oedipus before the truth.

That afternoon, she sat at her desk translating an Middle Kingdom text. The sphinx in the vignette regarded her with that ancient, stone smile. *I devour those who cannot solve me,* the hieroglyphs seemed to mock. *What walks on four legs in the morning, three at noon, and three in the evening?*

Man crawling, then walking upright, then leaning on a cane.

But no one mentioned the part where you spent your middle years being eaten alive from the inside.

Her phone buzzed. David: *Working late again. Don't wait up.*

Buster whined. She looked at the spinach wilting on the counter, at the sphinx reproduction on her wall, at the evidence of a life being hollowed out by quiet betrayals. The irony struck her—she spent her days deciphering ancient secrets while missing the ones destroying her present.

She took the dog for a walk instead. They walked until the streetlights flickered on, until the cold air cleared her head enough to form the question that mattered:

*What has four legs, two legs, and three legs, but never learns?*